It's Only Fear That Makes You Run: A conversation with Melissa Etheridge

If there’s one word to describe singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge, it would be persistent. From humble and hardscrabble beginnings as a…
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A new take on an old issue

Glass half-full or glass half-empty? For the past 20 years, we’ve heard from academics, some politicians and various commentators that…
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Smokies Life publishes George Masa biography

Smokies Life has announced the publication of “George Masa: A Life Reimagined,” the first comprehensively researched biography of the visionary…
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Shine your light: Patton Magee of The Nude Party

It’s a hot, early evening at FloydFest, the storied independently-run music festival held each July in the backwoods of rural…
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Living off the grid for 40 years

In a book written in a first-person, vulnerable and intimately entertaining narrative oral storytelling voice, Ken Smith takes us through…
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In this book, old-time means good time

Over 30 years ago, I read Helen Hooven Santmyer’s “And Ladies of the Club,” a doorstopper of a book chronicling…
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Spread it heavy: WNC rockers Porch 40 return

It was a special time and place when rock-n-funk act Porch 40 emerged onto the vast, vibrant Western North Carolina…
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A scary, page-turner of a story

Sometimes life seems too short to read every novel and author on your list. Oftentimes, I tend towards classics and…
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‘An Imaginative Proclivity’: Gary Carden and “Stories I Lived to Tell”

In “Stories I Lived to Tell: An Appalachian Memoir” (The University of North Carolina Press, 2024, 152 pages), 89-year-old storyteller…
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Jokes, laughter, happiness and good health

As part of my gifts for Father’s Day this year, my daughter bought me a book. She apologized before handing…
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Love you madly: A retrospective on rock rebels Cake

In the vast annals of American rock music, alternative rock act Cake remains a beacon of eccentricity — this sonic…
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‘The Anxious Generation’ — Part 2

Editor’s note: This first part of this review was published in the July 24 edition of The Smoky Mountain News…
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The ‘Anxious Generation’ – Part 1

A month ago I called my brother-in-law, known to all the family as Uncle Jim, to ask a favor. He readily…
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Carry this together: Zoe and Cloyd

With their latest album, “Songs of Our Grandfathers,” rising Asheville Americana/folk duo Zoe & Cloyd decided to take a different…
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A bird’s eye view of feathered friends

In a remarkable book that combines eco-poetry, poetic prose and personal and scientific information by award-winning African-American ornithologist and professor…
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Blurring the Lines: A conversation with Liam Purcell

Straddling the line between neo-traditional and progressive bluegrass, Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road are a fiercely ambitious and purposely…
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Dealing with loss, grief, and the balm of love

On the first Saturday of June, my friend John and I were just leaving McKay Used Books in Manassas, Virginia,…
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Mural celebrates past, present and future of Pigeon Center

A visually stunning amalgamation of images — both historic and aspirational — now adorns Waynesville’s Pigeon Community Multicultural Development center, breathing new…
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Southern stories for summer reading

Perhaps like many people, summer is a time for me to finally read those books I’ve been wanting to get…
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Time to stop the bashing, says Nina Power

When I heard British writer and philosopher Nina Power interviewed recently, I ordered her book. I was interested in her…
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Reflections on lessons learned at Bonnaroo

Wednesday morning, June 12, I left my sister’s house in Sapphire for my very first music festival.  I’d been to…
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Scarred but smarter: A conversation with Drivin N Cryin

In the annals of American rock music, few storied bands have withstood the test of time and endured with such…
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Labor of lust: A talk with Grammy winner, banjo phenom Kyle Tuttle

When it comes to bluegrass banjo, you’d be hard-pressed to find as vivacious and voracious a picker-n-grinner than Kyle Tuttle. 
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Casting into the future: A conversation with Woody Platt

On his latest single, “Broke Down Engine,” singer-songwriter Woody Platt teamed up with bluegrass icon Del McCoury.
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